Licensed wireless systems provide mobile wireless communications to individuals using wireless transceivers. Licensed wireless systems refer to public cellular telephone systems and/or Personal Communication Services (PCS) telephone systems. Wireless transceivers, also referred to as user equipment (UE), include cellular telephones, PCS telephones, wireless-enabled personal digital assistants, wireless modems, and the like.
Licensed wireless systems utilize wireless signal frequencies that are licensed from governments. Large fees are paid for access to these frequencies. Expensive base station (BS) equipment is used to support communications on licensed frequencies. Base stations are typically installed approximately a mile apart from one another (e.g., cellular towers in a cellular network). In a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), these base stations are system provider controlled and include Node-Bs which are high power and long range radio frequency transmitters and receivers used to directly connect with the user equipment. The wireless transport mechanisms and frequencies employed by typical licensed wireless systems limit both data transfer rates and range.
Licensed wireless systems continually upgrade their networks and equipment in an effort to deliver greater data transfer rates and range. However, with each upgrade iteration (e.g., 3 G to 4 G), the licensed wireless system providers incur substantial costs from licensing additional bandwidth spectrum to upgrading the existing radio network equipment or core network equipment. To offset these costs, the licensed wireless system providers pass down the costs to the user through the licensed wireless service fees. Users also incur equipment costs with each iterative upgrade of the licensed wireless network as new user equipment is needed to take advantage of the new services or improved services of the upgraded network.
Landline (wired) connections are extensively deployed and generally perform at a lower cost with higher quality voice and higher speed data services than the licensed wireless systems. The problem with landline connections is that they constrain the mobility of a user. Traditionally, a physical connection to the landline was required.
Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) emerged as one solution to lower costs associated with the licensed wireless systems while maintaining user wireless mobility and taking advantage of the higher quality voice and higher speed data services of the landline connections. UMA allowed users the ability to seamlessly and wirelessly roam in and out of licensed wireless systems and unlicensed wireless systems where the unlicensed wireless systems facilitate mobile access to the landline-based networks. Such unlicensed wireless systems support wireless communication based on the IEEE 802.11a, b or g standards (WiFi), or the Bluetooth® standard. The mobility range associated with such unlicensed wireless systems is typically on the order of 100 meters or less. A typical unlicensed wireless communication system includes a base station comprising a wireless access point (AP) with a physical connection (e.g., coaxial, twisted pair, or optical cable) to a landline-based network. The AP has a RF transceiver to facilitate communication with a wireless handset that is operative within a modest distance of the AP, wherein the data transport rates supported by the WiFi and Bluetooth® standards are much higher than those supported by the aforementioned licensed wireless systems.
UMA allowed users to purchase ordinary off-the-shelf access points in order to deploy a UMA service region that allowed for access to UMA service. In this manner, UMA was able to provide higher quality services at a lower cost than the licensed wireless systems. However, other UMA associated costs remained an obstacle to the large scale adoption of UMA.
With the emergence of UMA and licensed devices equipped with unlicensed radios that bypass the mobile operators' network/service, mobile operators sought to provide an equivalent solution using their licensed spectrum. Home Node Bs (HNBs) are low cost versions of the expensive Base Stations that comprise the mobile network that still use the operator's licensed spectrum for communication with licensed devices. The HNBs employ similar techniques as unlicensed access points such as the support of lower transmission power and range, integrated design, and use of regular landlines to communicate with the mobile operators' network to be cost and performance competitive with UMA. The use of regular landlines required the HNBs to adopt proprietary messaging and signaling standards that were different than those used by the licensed wireless systems for the expensive Base Stations.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art to develop a simplified integrated system that leverages the mobility provided by licensed wireless systems while maintaining the quality of service and data transfer rates of landline connections. Such a simplified integrated system needs to reduce adoption costs for both the individual user and the system provider that deploys such a system.